Improve Product and Software Development by Integrating ALM and PLM (Part 2 of 4)

Today the clear demarcation of the boundary between product development and software development is blurring fast as software increasingly becomes a major component of products. Companies urgently need to integrate the management of their product and software development efforts. In Part 1, I likened the process to a climb up a mountain. We looked at the current landscape characterized by a chasm between ALM and PLM, and we quickly realized that there are business benefits to be reaped at the summit.

Business benefits of ALM-PLM integration

Let’s take a look at the main reasons for the integration, as outlined by OVUM Principal Analyst Michael Azoff:
The Motivation:

Visibility across all assets

Improve search and locate information

Accurately link firmware with hardware:

Avoid errors, avoid damage costs, avoid reputation risk

Traceability of assets for engineers in all lifecycle phases:

Reduce time wasted.

Enable effective collaboration across globally distributed units.

Support maintenance, repair, & operations (MRO):

Quickly locate parts and manage defect fixes.

Reduce inoperative time of broken products.

So what are the top-level things to understand about the ALM-PLM Integration? Again, according to OVUM Principal Analyst, Michael Azoff:
The Recommendations:

Manage software linked to the hardware that embeds it.

Touch points:

Requirements management.

Testing & QA management.

Change management and version control.

Release management.

Integration occurs at two fundamental levels:

Linking is challenging across a supply chain so data exchange is necessary.

Live linking is cheaper and easier to manage but need a good process around it.

Now that we have a general idea of why ALM-PLM integration is critical for the road ahead, it’s time to dive in a bit deeper and explore the actual levels of integration. I’ll take you through that in the next article in this series.
Remember: at the end of the series you’ll be able to download the full series content as a handy PDF eBook.